DON'T LET THEM FOOL YOU ••••••Judge Fairly And Accurately. By: Prince Eze Ugochukwu

IMO STATE PUBLIC ENLIGHTENMENT

DON'T LET THEM FOOL YOU ••••••Judge Fairly And Accurately

By: Prince Eze Ugochukwu 

Despite the numerous accomplishments of the Governor Hope Uzodimma-led administration in virtually all indexes of development; be it infrastructure, health, education, security and youth empowerment, the opponents of the government are relentless in painting unfounded negative pictures about the government. Their biased, and blatantly false informations were designed to shape public opinion and behavior against the Governor. In truth, it is more of playing on emotions to achieve the destruction of the state entirely.

But let's look at it this way; Imagine a day in which five good things happened to you, but then you step in a mud and dirtied your shoes. If you were to consider your day ruined, then this will amount to negativity bias. In other words, all the five good things were forgotten and were replaced by only the dirt on your shoe, which can be cleaned up anyway. This would be an example of negativity dominance. The Imo opposition wants to dominate our people with biased negative stories mostly unfounded, twisted and forged.

"We have been able to position Imo as a leading digital skills hub in the country. We graduated 5000 students in Cohort 1 who were trained in various digital and tech skills. The governor has equipped them in their various startup endeavours. He gave out almost 3000 laptops, car tracking kits and smartphones for some of the graduates, while some others with visual and hearing challenges were given a hundred thousand Naira each.” 

The above quote was extracted from the address delivered by Dr. Chimezie Amadi the Imo State Commissioner for Digital Economy and E-Government. The occasion was the flag off of cohort 2 of digital skills training in which 15,000 Imo youths started their digital skills tutorials following the graduation of the initial 5,000 trainees.

The opposition in Imo State did not commend the government for this, rather they issued a statement that the program will not be sustainable in the long run. They joyfully publicized a pick-pocket incident at a boundary market in an attempt to dampen the good news. They used the pick pocket incident to advertise insecurity and tell the world that Imo is not safe. In any case, the incident could have been a drama sketch from them. Who knows.

The opposition will never see the digital training of thousands of Imo youths, they will rather throw a cocktail binge to celebrate the pickpocket incident. This is an incurable negative bias and it is deliberate. It is deliberate in the sense that they want to induce some people into paying more attention to and giving more weight to negative information than positive information. They want to paint the governor and government black.

"The reconstruction of major economic roads in the State has given a facelift to commercial activities across the State, thereby giving rise not just to State IGR but also, to personal income of Ndi Imo and residents.

"The reduction in travel time from Owerri to Orlu and Owerri to Okigwe has led to a reduction in transportation cost along these routes and we aim to achieve the same after the reconstruction of Owerri-Mbaise-Obowo-Umuahia road. Our road revolution is not limited to Federal roads as we have restored the State capital to its glory while rebuilding many other rural roads" 

The above statement was from Governor Uzodimma's recent analysis of the milestones recorded in road infrastructure.  Such uplifting news has already angered the Imo opposition. Good news about Imo State is an anathema to them.

The truth is that if you are not very careful, they will infiltrate your brain with their negative bias against the government of Imo State. It is a mind game by the opposition, so do not fall for it and don't let them fool you. They know that some people may out of inherent weakness attend to, or fall for negative information more often than positive information. That is exactly why the opposition will not tell you anything about the free health service being implemented by Governor Hope Uzodimma across the twenty-seven local government areas of the state.

In a recent development in Imo State, the Executive Secretary of the Imo State Health Insurance Agency, Dr Uchenna Ewelike announced that the Imo health insurance program is meant to reduce and finally stop the vicious circle of poverty, disease and death brought about by out of pocket payments in health financing. Dr Ewelike revealed that in the last 12 weeks, his agency has successfully enrolled 66,003 vulnerable populations across the 305 political wards in Imo State under the Basic Health Care Provision Fund. So health care is free today in Imo State for the civil servants, the poor and the vulnerable. Governor Uzodimma commits a whopping sum of more than 80 million naira per month to pick the medical bills of the workers and less privileged Imo sons and daughters.

Here again, the opposition will not commend the government. They will rather want to prevent the people from judging the government fairly. They intend to plant unpleasant thoughts, despondency, hateful emotions, fear and harmful trauma on our people. 

The irrationality and self-serving bias against the government by the opposition bothers more on selfishness and absurdity. They are out to make sure that Imo people do not make optimal decisions. They want people to view the developmental realities in a negative rather than positive way. They don't want the people to hold positive expectations and memories of the government. They want to block positive information and positive reasoning.

When the people applaud Governor Uzodimma for his infrastructural revolution, when the people pour encomium on the governor for bringing back security, peace and harmony, these are positive practices that should be emulated, appreciated and encouraged by right-thinking members of the public. 

Here in Imo State, there is empirical evidence to show that the roads are good, that public urban water supply has been restored in parts of Owerri, that medical students are now graduating, that there is a new Teaching Hospital, that health is free, that the youths are receiving 21st-century digital skills training etc. Even when we are experiencing numerous good achievements, the negative bias of the opposition wants us to focus solely on bad things no matter how microscopic. The opposition wants our citizens to ruminate and meditate on small things, worry over inanities and linger on negative thoughts.

Around the world, negative news appears to dominate the media, but why are they so prevalent? One hypothesis is that due to negativity bias, negative coverage is more attention-grabbing than positive coverage. It is this mindset that is propelling opposition engagement in Imo State. As far as they are concerned, what matters is to craft negative narratives against the State just to hug the media limelight even at the detriment of the people themselves.

The game plan of the Imo opposition is for people to dwell on unpleasant and traumatic events more than pleasant ones. They want to influence our thought process in negative ways, they want to re-frame the way we think. They want us to expect the worst. They prefer depression, and pessimism, just to destroy our psychological well-being.

The Imo opposition wants us to attend to, learn from; and use negative information far more than positive information. They want us to focus our attention more quickly on negative rather than positive information.

According to an ex-British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, "If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.". This is exactly the intention of the Imo opposition; continue to presently dwell on the past insecurity in other to wreak havoc on the future of Imo State. 

Don't let them fool you. Avoid falling into their trap and don't get caught up in their killjoy narratives. We must together stand firm and start to tackle the opposition head-on and challenge their dreadful narratives about Imo State. They have fouled our atmosphere enough. 

Collectively, we must all focus on urging Imo people not to vote for politicians or political parties who are in favour of demarketing Imo State.

A sense of self-perceived collective victimhood has long engulfed the opposition in Imo State. The memory of their ouster from the government house, Owerri has not subsided 3 years after. They have become dangerously harmful and immoral in playing a collective sense of victimhood. Their emotions, attitudes, and their behavioural tendencies have planted, germinated and nurtured insecurity in Imo State.

When they dwell on security as their mantra, there are no evidence to support such because the state is bubbling with activities. They are only seeking attention or sympathy from others. In most cases, they make false accusations of crimes and try to frame others for crimes they did not commit.

So it must be explained that when the opposition in Imo State feast on the issue of insecurity, they are doing so for a multitude of reasons including everything from attention

seeking to manipulate public opinion against the government.

None of their activities are charitable, altruistic or selfless.